OREANDA-NEWS. January 30, 2014. The roadmap is expected to enhance competitiveness of the national economy so that our country would be able to take advantage of all the opportunities the RM-EU DCFTA agreement opens and to overcome all the challenges it may entail.

The DCFTA agreement aims to mainstream Moldova into the common economic area of the European Union and to support and encourage deep structural changes necessary to enhance competitiveness of its economy, the Ministry of Economy states. Competitiveness requires enhancement at both the macro-level and the level of a single enterprise. It is closely tied with direct and indirect costs, which are decisive for competiveness of Moldovan firms nationally and internationally.

These apprehensions are reflected in the roadmap in general and in each of its components in particular. A size and a structure of the market is one more important element of competitiveness. They determine ability of enterprises to develop their business lines and to use large-scale economies in order to reign over their costs and efficiency. In case of Moldova, thanks to DCFTA, domestic entrepreneurs are given wider access to encouraging external markets with huge purchasing potential. To promote the country’s competitiveness the scale of the market and its efficiency must be broadened.

The roadmap for Moldova’s competitiveness enhancement is based on the conceptual approach offered by the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. In line with its general criteria, Moldova is now transiting from the factor-oriented economy to the efficiency-oriented one. Rivalry among factor-oriented economies means, first of all, the rivalry among their factors, such as natural resources; Moldova, for example, is rich in fruitful agricultural lands. Such economies are vying by selling row materials and products, and their competition is the competition of prices.

The low productivity of such economies is reflected in law salaries. In factor-oriented economies, competitiveness depends, first of all, on normal functioning of public and private bodies, on well-developed infrastructure, on stability of the macro-economic environment and on robust labour force that has the basic level of education.

 As Moldova is transiting to the next stage of development, based on efficiency and innovation, it should develop more effective industrial processes and modern technologies to raise quality of products and services. Competiveness-influencing factors may be divided into three general groups: factors that undermine competiveness of the entire country; factors that have impact on this or that industry and factors that undermine competitiveness of particular enterprises. The roadmap contains specific measures to mitigate influence of all the three factors. Measures of the roadmap have been divided into particular components.

They are Human resources; access to finance; transport infrastructure; energy infrastructure; quality infrastructure; information society; trade liberalization; taxation and tax administration; scientific research, technologies and innovation; competition. Every domain has been reflected in the matrix of policies, which contains specific measures to be taken and establishes specific indicators of competitiveness to be achieved. In some cases, the indicators stem from the Global Competitiveness Index, the Logistic Performance Index, Doing Business and Enabling Trade Report. Most objectives and measures the above components provide for aim to mitigate competitiveness-undermining factors horizontally and at the level of the entire economy. At the same time, every component includes specific measures and objectives to raise competitiveness of industrial branches and enterprises of Moldova.